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Showing content with the highest reputation on 03/10/23 in all areas
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That’s essential- I’ve had the last Beale poll enlarged and framed with the No voters in gold letters along the bottom.6 points
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If we sign Lampard then the board will deserve everything they get. At the first instance of weakness the mob will absolutely destroy him. It would be an absolutely ridiculous appointment, so one we will probably make.6 points
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Jansen and Muscat both frighten me. Muscat appears to have a decent record, but when you dig down into it the Australia league is one of those weird ones where the top half of the table or so qualify for a knock-out cup to see who wins the league, he’s actually only come top of the league once I believe. He’s done well in Japan too but both clubs he’s done well at he’s come in straight after postecoglu, the one team he didn’t do that with he managed 2 wins in 15 before being sacked. Jansen might be good, but to me appears to be another gamble. He’s done decently with AZ from what I can see, but AZ were riding slightly higher before he took over it seems so he’s really treaded water with them rather than improved them. Steve McLaren won the league there with FC Twente not so long ago, a much better achievement in my opinion…. I dunno, his European record doesn’t look that amazing when you look at the detail. Sure, getting the the semi final of any European cup is an achievement, but the only really impressive victory during that run looks to be against Lazlo, the next most impressive fixture was a draw over two legs with Anderlecht and getting through on pens.6 points
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The Rae Davis duo have until Thursday to iron out any Kinks.6 points
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5 points
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If Maradona was blessed with the hand of God, then Gallardo has been blessed by the hand of cod(piece).5 points
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Yes you have a point there. However he soon ran out of steam. Looking back, I think Alex McLeish emerges from the last 25 years with considerable credit. He might have inherited some of Advocaat's team and he was guilty of signing Olivier Barnard but he did achieve enviable success on a very modest budget.4 points
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Maybe coaching will tell a team what to do while management will make them do it. Maybe it is just that one man can't do two jobs.4 points
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I see what you’re getting at and you’re right but i’d exclude Scot Symon from the example. With East Fife he won promotion, won the League Cup and got the team to a Scottish Cup Final appearance. With Preston North End, a notable club in those days, he took them to a FA Cup Final and impressively PNE finished second in Division 1 on the same points total as the champions Arsenal, losing the title on goal average. And he took five wickets for Scotland against Australia. Serial winner.3 points
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Can't lie, the Muscat propaganda is wearing me down a wee bit...3 points
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As in if we had a head coach of the B team in the Championship with a shared ethos with the first team - which I think is what the club would want, he'd be an ideal interim until we found a successor. Better yet, he might even be the successor. A la Guardiola, Zidane (Jansen?) etc. Bugbear of mine.3 points
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Charlie Miller and Derek Ferguson were saying on a pod that there are a couple injured Rangers players who have miraculously recovered for training. Sure the same happened when Gio got sacked and MB came in. If I could give one piece of advice to the next Rangers manager it would be, "keep an eye on these players".3 points
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This would make me jump in the front seat of @CammyF's anti-board bandwagon. What's the f*cking point? Are they even trying to appoint someone competent?3 points
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I must admit that I hadn't thought about it like that. He could be the man for the job.3 points
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This article will resonate with several of this pointing to the structural problems at Rangers Four Lads Had A Dream3 points
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"It all started with a photograph of the private parts of a former player." Hardly Odysseus and Nausicaa, but when you call yourselves Ajax..... How Ajax went from Champions League overachievers to chaos Dutch club won neutrals’ hearts with 2019 European run but a series of events has led to poor results and fan rage boiling over Bart Vlietstra Wed 27 Sep 2023 08.00 BST https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/sep/27/how-ajax-went-from-champions-league-overachievers-to-chaos It all started with a photograph of the private parts of a former player. No, this is not a piece about dressing-room “humour”. This is the story of the demise of Ajax, who in 2019 were seconds from the Champions League final and now sit 14th in the Eredivisie after the game at home against Feyenoord on Sunday was abandoned amid crowd trouble with the team 3-0 down. The goal scored by Tottenham’s Lucas Moura in the last minute of injury time on 8 May 2019 shattered Ajax’s Champions League final dream then but there could be no doubting the Dutch club had overachieved. For a team from a league snubbed by oil sheikhs and big investors, and where TV money is a relative pittance, it was still a memorable evening and an unforgettable season. Ajax were referred to as the Champions League winners in people’s hearts. First Erik ten Hag’s squad had survived three qualifying rounds, then resisted Bayern Munich twice in spectacular fashion in the group phase, thrashed Real Madrid 4-1 at the Bernabéu and beaten Juventus in Turin. This was achieved via amazing combination football and the superb technical skills of the budding talents Frenkie de Jong, Matthijs de Ligt, Hakim Ziyech and Donny van de Beek, while Dusan Tadic and Daley Blind were experiencing their second youth. The ideal blend had been achieved under the football director, Marc Overmars, and although the end against Spurs was bitter and brutal, people in the Netherlands were convinced it marked the start of a new era. Then came the day when Overmars – the former Ajax, Arsenal and Barcelona player – took down his pants in a toilet in an Ajax building, took a photo with his phone and sent it to a female Ajax employee. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it transpired it was not the only time Overmars had approached female colleagues in an inappropriate manner, and it led to his departure on 6 February 2022. His conduct had been the best-kept secret at Ajax, where everything normally leaks out, which perhaps says something about the masculine inner world of the Netherlands’ largest club and the blinkers they had on. Ajax thought they had become the Bayern Munich of the Netherlands, untouchable by the rest. In May 2022 they finished top for a fourth consecutive season. They had responded to the crushing Moura goal by producing more great Champions League nights against Valencia, Chelsea, Borussia Dortmund and Sporting. Their traditional rivals PSV and especially Feyenoord appeared to be years behind. But Ajax missed the transfer acumen of Overmars, who not only discovered gems in Europe but had built an impressive network in South and Central America. Antony, Lisandro Martínez, Edson Álvarez, Ziyech, Mohammed Kudus and Kasper Dolberg were eventually sold for huge sums, as were the homegrown talents De Jong, De Ligt, Van de Beek and Sergiño Dest. Overmars had been installed at Ajax in 2012 after a reshape of the club initiated by Johan Cruyff. For the first five years Overmars had to work closely with other former players such as Dennis Bergkamp and Wim Jonk and was prevented by the board from giving players a salary of more than €1m a year. At the end of 2017 he took control of Ajax alongside Edwin van der Sar when Bergkamp was sacked together with the coach Marcel Keizer. One of his best moves was to appoint Ten Hag, the coach he had previously hired at Go Ahead Eagles. Overmars broke open the salary ceiling to bring Tadic and Blind back to the Netherlands from the Premier League, and with that the re-emergence of Ajax as a big name in Europe started. Then came the scandal of the inappropriate behaviour. Ten Hag still guided Ajax to their 36th national title but he left in the summer of 2022 for Manchester United. Ajax replaced Overmars with a few inexperienced employees and asked Van der Sar, the general director, to help out with transfer decisions. The club sold players that summer for about €200m and spent about €100m, both records, but a disastrous season followed. It featured a record 6-1 defeat in the Champions League by Napoli, the dismissal of the coach Alfred Schreuder and a third-place finish under the inexperienced interim coach John Heitinga, which meant no Champions League this season. Van der Sar retired in the summer, saying he was worn out. He had appointed a new football director, Sven Mislintat, formerly of Stuttgart, Dortmund and Arsenal, who was instructed to sell heavily (€150m) and reduce the salary structure. Without Champions League income, Ajax had to make cuts for the first time in years. Mislintat succeeded, but the criticism was he acted largely alone. He signed 12 fairly unknown talents, some of whom had never played at the highest level. He relieved Heitinga, who was popular with the fans, of his position and appointed Maurice Steijn, who was inexperienced at the top, and asked for a few months of patience. But in Amsterdam they do not do patience. Ajax have made their worst start to a season since 1964 and to add to the sense of trouble it turned out that Misintlat had brought in a player, Borna Sosa, who was represented by the German agency AKA Global, which allegedly has a stake in the data company Matchmetrics in which Mislintat owns shares. The club has launched an investigation into the transfer. Ajax said Mislintat had declared his interest in Matchmetrics when appointed but that they had not known about AKA Global’s alleged holding in the company at the time of the transfer. Mislintat, the club said, had said “he will offer his full cooperation and share all relevant documents” with the inquiry. Everything culminated last Sunday in the match against Feyenoord, the arch-rivals who had been looked down upon with malicious pleasure in Amsterdam for years but who had overtaken Ajax by a massive margin last season, nationally and in Europe. Feyenoord took a 3-0 lead. Ajax fans from the F-side ultras shouted for the board and Mislintat to go and twice threw fireworks on to the field, forcing the game to be halted. There were riots afterwards around the stadium, with hooligans forcing their way into the main entrance and confronting the police and mobile units in a manner not seen in Amsterdam for a long time. That evening, Mislintat was fired. On Wednesday the club that would never allow itself to be overtaken by a Dutch rival must try to overcome a 3-0 deficit against the champions Feyenoord in 35 minutes in an empty stadium. The future? Some fanatical fans are hoping that Overmars, who is now very successful at the Belgian double winners Antwerp, will return. Many others think that is a bridge too far. The club is hopelessly divided, which can almost entirely be traced to that moment Overmars dropped his pants and took out his phone.2 points
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Make sure to click on 'make names public' so they're named and shamed.2 points
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We have serious problems if Lampard is the front runner. I’m starting to think searching for a dof should be the priority, not a manager. I just don’t trust them to appoint an appropriate manager. I do not want us to be in this same position next October.2 points
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Correct me if I'm wrong Compo, but wasn't there a period a few years back when you were quite persistent with your demand to "Give young Murty the job."...?2 points
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I'm always wary of smokescreens in these matters but if that did happen to be the list then surely Clement would be an easy choice.2 points
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Nope, no way. Not interested. I'm not sure what he's done as a manager to suggest that he should be Rangers manager. The style of football his teams play isn't endearing either. The fact that he turned us and Sunderland down suggests a major lack of ambition on his part. I can't see him coming in a shaking up the place and making difficult decisions. He didn't feel up to doing it in 2017 so why would it be any different now?2 points
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Dick Advocaat had a squad of marvels, wonderful players such as Tugay, Reyna, Amato, .................. etc could not secure a starting berth. Martin O'Neill arrived and played a form of direct football, ball wide and launch it to Sutton - Hartson with Larsson feeding off. We had games where we played the entire game against MON's Sellik with the vast majority of the possession confined to playing in front of them. Advocaat gave up and the Club appointed Alex McLeish. I remember being sceptical, big Eck had been player-manager at Motherwell and won the Championship with Hibs. The former Dandy won five out of the next six domestic trophies. His first game was at ra Stydome and the perceived wisdom was if Dick could not get a tune out of the assembled stars, how would Eck manage it? He countered MON by playing one(Lovenkrands) up front and the back four were instructed to hit him early and often. We were one up at half time, the Dane notched but, he should have had a first forty-five hat-trick. He roasted Tom Boyd and I believe that was the Rangers haters last game for the green'n'grey horrors? The point I am driving is does any Gersnetters think Stuart Kettlewell deserves an interview? Ross County and Motherwell, seems to be a thinker and, a good Bluenose too. Could he take the current crop of massive under-achievers and get them playing successfully? Could the club tempt him away from the mighty claret and amber?2 points
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I ignored his record in the Conference, League Two and league One because it's irrelevant (in terms of level and it was around 10 years ago). His final season at Sheffield Utd was a shit-show. His season at Middlesborough was a shit-show. His season at Watford was a shit-show. I agree there are worse names out there, but Wilder should not be an option - IMO, of course.2 points
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Sky Sports are saying that Potter and Ryan Lowe (Preston NE) are not in the running.2 points
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Lampard, Wilder ..... has the world gone insane. People like that should be nowhere near Ibrox.2 points
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I'd rather have Lampard than Wilder, but that would be swiftly followed by the insertion of a shotgun into my mouth.2 points
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If the board thought that the reactions in the crowd towards the end of Beale's reign were bad, it would give new meaning to toxic if Lampard is appointed2 points
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Genuinely, I'd still take Wilder until the end of the season. Had Sheff Utd playing great football. Apparently knows the Scottish game as well. Lampard would kill any hope I have.2 points
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There needs to be someone in place before the end of the international break.2 points
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The speed with which the support condemned Beale should be your guide. Seems to me this isn't like the departure of Pedro or Gerrard or GvB. We're entering different territory where fuses will remain very short and any sign that the board are repeating the same mistakes will, I believe, see many immediately vote with their feet. The end of the collective tether is in sight.2 points
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If we look at recent history, our club seems to achieve the most success with a very specific type of manager / head coach. A man manager like Smith and McLeish, while not tactical masterminds worked miracles on limited budgets at times (Walter second time around obviously). While football has changed since they had their success with us. I can see the value of getting a manager that can motivate a talented squad to play at 100% every week as opposed to one that can go into great granular tactical detail on how to beat the 10 man defence of St Johnstone and Aberdeen while cruising along at 50%. Who that manager is I don't know, but its worth taking into consideration.2 points
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Lampard is a failure, there is no way to dress up any of his managerial spells in any other way. I'd be very surprised if he was even being considered2 points
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Oh Christ NO. Bennett wouldn't be that stupid, would he. He'd be as well re-signing Aaron James Ramsey.2 points
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Yes, good names, but their success comes either in the Netherlands or Barcelona - which, thanks to Cruyff, is basically Dutch in terms of the players and set-up at their disposal. Koeman didn't win much outside the Netherlands. (He had Southampton doing well, but that was on the back of Pochettino's work, IMO.) Hiddink is a good manager, but again didn't actually win much outside the Netherlands.2 points
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I got banned waaaay way back in the day for sticking up for McCoist (this was before he came back with Walter), loads on the board were calling him a shyster and an uncle tom. Madness.2 points
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I think they banned all the Rangers fans there. Its only the timposters and the mods now.2 points
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At best, Jansen would be another gamble. We can't afford that and I hope we steer well clear.2 points
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Dutch schooled manager - they don't tend to perform well outside of Holland AZ Alkmaar - were performing well under previous coach who done well at Feyenoord, has the built something better or is he keeping a good thing going How much influence in transfers does he have or is it a DoF led / analyst & scout approach? What is 'success' at Alkmaar? if its finishing about 8th place or higher in the league, that's not exactly representative of expectations here Is 50 odd and in his first managers job How often do AZ Alkmaar play against the low block and can he beat it? Done ok in Europe to be fair2 points
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The amount of rumours I'm seeing pop up for Kevin Muscat are giving me fear, I really hope rumours are as far as they go2 points
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I agree with that but I can't figure out why the team this season looked as if there had been little coaching and didn't have a style of play. Gerrard's team was structured and did have a defined set-up and way of playing and Beale must have had a fair bit of input into that so where did his coaching ability disappear to? All very strange.2 points
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As a manager in his own right he has taken charge of 50 games. What is it you think he has achieved to deserve an interview? By all means add him to a watchlist and monitor how he does over the following few years. That's sensible. To answer your question, though: No.1 point
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Reading a couple of posters saying that Dutch Managers don't tend to travel well outside of Holland. Off the top of my head, i can think of the following who all had more than reasonable levels of success out with their home nation. - Rijkaard - Koeman - Cruyff - Advocaat - Van Gaal - Hiddink Not suggesting that this is the level we are shopping for, and for every Cruyff there's a Martin Jol, but I'm not sure I'm buying this argument. @Sutton_blows_goats @Rousseau1 point
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Davis and Rae strike fear into me - just can't see them doing anything to turn this around. I can see the logic of giving them a couple of games until the international break, but any longer would be a disaster in my opinion.1 point